Apparently my Android app updated today and the hints feature is now severely limited. I’ve been practicing Japanese an hour a day for about three months, and I have to admit that I’m now viscerally feeling stress about this. The hints are vital on days 2 and 3 with my newly learned words, when I’m trying to pull from short-term memory into deeper encoding. With certain words I just need a reminder of a few characters to make that connection, and in practice this appears to be no longer available to me.
From a learning perspective this feels crippling - would someone please explain what the perceived benefit would be?
I’ve been super strong about committing to daily practice, with a goal of every day for a year until I return to Japan next summer. However this just makes me want to give up for tonight and I’ve never felt that previously.
As a Pro iPhone user, the app recently notified me that I had unlimited hints that I could use. It seemed strange to me that it explicitly told me that my hints were unlimited. Now I think I understand why. I would bet that non-pro members now get a limit on this. Are you a paying user?
(almost off topic: One should use flagging with discretion, not throw around with flags flags flags; if you have issues, speak about, but please stop just flagging around every 2 words jeee… too much policing kills any forum)
No numbers for me… I only have a pencil. Maybe because I use an Android app ?? No I finally see your pic. So you’re not using pc either. I hope things doesn’t change for me.
Upon further reflection, limiting the number of hints is a good idea I think, so you’re forced not to rely on them too much. But it has to be vary with your reviewing, something like: review 5 words, earn 1 hint.
If it is another way to entice you to buy pro, it’s very very bad, as this is not a way to make the app more useful for pro members, but a way to cripple it for non-pro members. That way the dark side lies.
I am pro user now, but I was using memrise for a year without being pro member. And I made mistakes. The only thing about not having difficult words feature is that if you have words that are listed as difficult… they will come sooner for the review. I hope that is same now, coz I don’t use that feature much… It is boring if you have only one or two difficult words.
If they would change treatment of difficult words, as in not making you review them more often… that wouldn’t be nice.
I am pro and use Android, limited hints came in a few days ago (on the Beta I use at least).
I had mixed feelings about it but I feel that limiting them makes it more challenging and pushes you to learn (just like switching off “autodetect”). I would agree with Arete_Hime. That young ones use them a lot shows their limited motivation in learning, choosing the easy option.
I would recommend reviewing as much as learning to @Bryan_Gilstein8 so you can earn them as quickly as you spend them.
I came to the forum to see if this topic was brought up. I really preferred the unlimited hints. For me, there are a few reasons, not the least of which is spelling. Spelling is not my strong suit, so I often used hints to help me get on the right track. Over time, I do learn to spell the words correctly, but the hints helped me ease into that without getting so many things marked incorrect.
I’d like to see this functionality returned. It would be nice to at least have the option. Maybe for Pro members.
Yes, I have been using the free version so far. This change may be the impetus I need to trial the Pro version, although if I was just coming to the app today I’m doubtful the learning as is it now would have been engaging enough to stick with Memrise.
@sircemloud I actually spend about 50 minutes each day reviewing and 10 minutes learning new words. The biggest issue is that the number of hints you earn is paltry, qualify for only a single keystroke/character, and are only earned for the specific auto generated review words.
Lets say I return to 50 review words that earn me 8 hints. Sound like a lot, but certain Japanese words or phrases have 10-15 characters. If I’m not sure about a character near the end of a phrase, I have to spend 8-10 hints just to reveal to the point of the phrase where I need help.
Again, it’s a distraction and detraction from the learning process to have to spend cognitive resources deciding whether to ‘spend’ a hint, or to stress that I don’t quite know something (I find it highly motivating to keep words off of my ‘difficult words’ list). Change this to a per item/word basis rather than per keystroke and I think it would be much less of a concern.
I am a Pro user and I also have limited hints - that surprised the heck out of me. I am only using them if I really can’t guess the word/sentence.And if I learn new words that can take a while until they stick and I can recognize them so in that case I really need the hints.Most of the times using 2 or 4 hints depending on the word or sentence can get me to remember the rest. If I have to go more than 2 hints on short words and 4 hints on sentences I usually hit the next button because I need that word/sentence repeated often.
I am learning Japanese - and this is definitely not an easy language for me,specifically if it comes to remembering Kanji’s.I would like to have the hints as before … unlimited.
